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Letters for Tuesday, February 3, 2009
•Kula Elementary looks ahead
•Say no to assisted suicide
•Support Solis as labor secretary
Kula Elementary looks ahead
We are saddened to hear that Kula High and Intermediate will close its doors at the end of the school year. Kula Elementary at Na Kamalei in Kilauea has been and continues to be a separate nonprofit corporation operating a premier K-6 elementary school on a separate campus and under separate governance and administration from Kula High and Intermediate.
The closing of Kula High and Intermediate in no way affects the operations of Kula Elementary at Na Kamalei.
Kula Elementary will continue to offer a challenging curriculum and small class sizes. Our core program emphasizes critical thinking, collaborative problem solving and exploration of deep essential questions.
Alongside our core program, students are exposed weekly, all year long to local experts who teach them art, music, Hawaiian Studies, creative dance/storytelling, physical education and marine science. Our students also have the chance to take robotics, digital media, yoga, pottery, drama, hip hop, organic gardening and Japanese watercolor as part of our elective program. Kula Elementary offers a laptop program for grades 3-6, a one-of-a-kind marine education program and an overall focus on sustainability.
At this important time in the growth of Kula Elementary, we are very excited to be designing and executing our first strategic plan. Our goal is to further develop a world class 21st century eco-friendly school that works in sync with the larger Kaua’i community.
We look forward to unveiling our new plan — including new core values, a refined mission and a new name — to the greater Kaua’i community before the end of this school year.
If you are interested in becoming part of this exciting process, please contact principal Lisa Mireles at 828-1144.
• Scott Nemeroff, Lyle Robinson, Chris Jaeb, David Bissell, Doran Smith, Benjy Garfinkle, Lisa Mireles,
Kula Elementary Board of Trustees
Say no to assisted suicide
I am an internal medicine doctor, practicing in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal. I would like to share a story about one of my patients.
I was caring for a 76 year-old man who came in with a sore on his arm. The sore was ultimately diagnosed as a malignant melanoma, and I referred him to two cancer specialists for evaluation and therapy. I had known this patient and his wife for over a decade. He was an avid hiker, a popular hobby here in Oregon. As he went through his therapy, he became less able to do this activity, becoming depressed, which was documented in his chart.
During this time, my patient expressed a wish for doctor-assisted suicide to one of the cancer specialists. Rather than taking the time and effort to address the question of depression, or ask me to talk with him as his primary care physician and as someone who knew him, the specialist called me and asked me to be the “second opinion” for his suicide. She told me that barbiturate overdoses “work very well” for patients like this, and that she had done this many times before.
I told her that assisted-suicide was not appropriate for this patient and that I did not concur. I was very concerned about my patient’s mental state, and I told her that addressing his underlying issues would be better than simply giving him a lethal prescription. Unfortunately, my concerns were ignored, and approximately two weeks later my patient was dead from an overdose prescribed by this doctor. His death certificate, filled out by this doctor, listed the cause of death as melanoma.
The public record is not accurate. My patient did not die from his cancer, but at the hands of a once-trusted colleague. This experience has affected me, my practice, and my understanding of what it means to be a physician. What happened to this patient, who was weak and vulnerable, raises several important questions that I have had to answer, and that Hawaiian citizens should also consider:
• If assisted suicide is made legal in Hawai‘i, will you be able to trust your doctors, insurers and HMOs to give you and your family members the best care? I referred my patient to specialty care, to a doctor I trusted, and the outcome turned out to be fatal.
• How will financial issues affect your choices? In Oregon, patients under the Oregon Health Plan have been denied coverage for treatment and offered coverage for suicide instead, which says the plan money. See e.g. KATU TV story and video at http://www.katu.com/home/video/26119539.html (about Barbara Wagner). Do you want this to be your choice?
• If your doctor and/or HMO favors assisted suicide, will they let you know about all possible options or will they simply encourage you to kill yourself?
In most states, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help. In Oregon, the only help my patient received was a lethal prescription, intended to kill him.
To the citizens of Hawai‘i, is this where you want to go? Please learn the real lesson from Oregon. Despite all of the so-called safeguards in our assisted suicide law, numerous instances of coercion, inappropriate selection, botched attempts and active euthanasia have been documented in the public record.
Protect your health care. Don’t let legalized assisted suicide come to Hawai‘i.
• Charles J. Bentz, MD, Portland, Ore.
Support Solis as labor secretary
Right now, there is some hope that the Employee Free Choice Act could become law in the United States, removing a major hurdle to workers who want to form unions in their workplaces.
Republicans don’t want the Employee Free Choice Act to pass. And they really don’t want Hilda Solis, President Obama’s pick for labor secretary, to be confirmed.
The Employee Free Choice Act, which Hilda Solis supports, would streamline the process for workers to form unions in their work places, and seriously curtail employers’ ability to run campaigns of intimidation and disinformation during organizing campaigns.
I used to be a union organizer (H.E.R.E.) and a union member (Teamsters). My husband is a member of the Carpenters Union. While conservatives make the false claim that union organizers intimidate workers into signing union cards, we know that it is employers who use strong-arm tactics when they routinely force their workers to attend mandatory anti-union meetings in which they are threatened with firings and plant closures.
During union organizing campaigns employers hold the purse strings of the workers’ futures. The Employee Free Choice Act would balance out the power in the workplace and allow workers make conscious choices about their working conditions free of fear and intimidation.
Consider contacting your representatives in Congress to tell them to fight for Solis’s confirmation. Solis represents one of Obama’s most progressive picks for his cabinet. Let’s ensure that positive change really does happen this time!
• Katy Rose, Hanalei
•Say no to assisted suicide
•Support Solis as labor secretary
Kula Elementary looks ahead
We are saddened to hear that Kula High and Intermediate will close its doors at the end of the school year. Kula Elementary at Na Kamalei in Kilauea has been and continues to be a separate nonprofit corporation operating a premier K-6 elementary school on a separate campus and under separate governance and administration from Kula High and Intermediate.
The closing of Kula High and Intermediate in no way affects the operations of Kula Elementary at Na Kamalei.
Kula Elementary will continue to offer a challenging curriculum and small class sizes. Our core program emphasizes critical thinking, collaborative problem solving and exploration of deep essential questions.
Alongside our core program, students are exposed weekly, all year long to local experts who teach them art, music, Hawaiian Studies, creative dance/storytelling, physical education and marine science. Our students also have the chance to take robotics, digital media, yoga, pottery, drama, hip hop, organic gardening and Japanese watercolor as part of our elective program. Kula Elementary offers a laptop program for grades 3-6, a one-of-a-kind marine education program and an overall focus on sustainability.
At this important time in the growth of Kula Elementary, we are very excited to be designing and executing our first strategic plan. Our goal is to further develop a world class 21st century eco-friendly school that works in sync with the larger Kaua’i community.
We look forward to unveiling our new plan — including new core values, a refined mission and a new name — to the greater Kaua’i community before the end of this school year.
If you are interested in becoming part of this exciting process, please contact principal Lisa Mireles at 828-1144.
• Scott Nemeroff, Lyle Robinson, Chris Jaeb, David Bissell, Doran Smith, Benjy Garfinkle, Lisa Mireles,
Kula Elementary Board of Trustees
Say no to assisted suicide
I am an internal medicine doctor, practicing in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal. I would like to share a story about one of my patients.
I was caring for a 76 year-old man who came in with a sore on his arm. The sore was ultimately diagnosed as a malignant melanoma, and I referred him to two cancer specialists for evaluation and therapy. I had known this patient and his wife for over a decade. He was an avid hiker, a popular hobby here in Oregon. As he went through his therapy, he became less able to do this activity, becoming depressed, which was documented in his chart.
During this time, my patient expressed a wish for doctor-assisted suicide to one of the cancer specialists. Rather than taking the time and effort to address the question of depression, or ask me to talk with him as his primary care physician and as someone who knew him, the specialist called me and asked me to be the “second opinion” for his suicide. She told me that barbiturate overdoses “work very well” for patients like this, and that she had done this many times before.
I told her that assisted-suicide was not appropriate for this patient and that I did not concur. I was very concerned about my patient’s mental state, and I told her that addressing his underlying issues would be better than simply giving him a lethal prescription. Unfortunately, my concerns were ignored, and approximately two weeks later my patient was dead from an overdose prescribed by this doctor. His death certificate, filled out by this doctor, listed the cause of death as melanoma.
The public record is not accurate. My patient did not die from his cancer, but at the hands of a once-trusted colleague. This experience has affected me, my practice, and my understanding of what it means to be a physician. What happened to this patient, who was weak and vulnerable, raises several important questions that I have had to answer, and that Hawaiian citizens should also consider:
• If assisted suicide is made legal in Hawai‘i, will you be able to trust your doctors, insurers and HMOs to give you and your family members the best care? I referred my patient to specialty care, to a doctor I trusted, and the outcome turned out to be fatal.
• How will financial issues affect your choices? In Oregon, patients under the Oregon Health Plan have been denied coverage for treatment and offered coverage for suicide instead, which says the plan money. See e.g. KATU TV story and video at http://www.katu.com/home/video/26119539.html (about Barbara Wagner). Do you want this to be your choice?
• If your doctor and/or HMO favors assisted suicide, will they let you know about all possible options or will they simply encourage you to kill yourself?
In most states, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help. In Oregon, the only help my patient received was a lethal prescription, intended to kill him.
To the citizens of Hawai‘i, is this where you want to go? Please learn the real lesson from Oregon. Despite all of the so-called safeguards in our assisted suicide law, numerous instances of coercion, inappropriate selection, botched attempts and active euthanasia have been documented in the public record.
Protect your health care. Don’t let legalized assisted suicide come to Hawai‘i.
• Charles J. Bentz, MD, Portland, Ore.
Support Solis as labor secretary
Right now, there is some hope that the Employee Free Choice Act could become law in the United States, removing a major hurdle to workers who want to form unions in their workplaces.
Republicans don’t want the Employee Free Choice Act to pass. And they really don’t want Hilda Solis, President Obama’s pick for labor secretary, to be confirmed.
The Employee Free Choice Act, which Hilda Solis supports, would streamline the process for workers to form unions in their work places, and seriously curtail employers’ ability to run campaigns of intimidation and disinformation during organizing campaigns.
I used to be a union organizer (H.E.R.E.) and a union member (Teamsters). My husband is a member of the Carpenters Union. While conservatives make the false claim that union organizers intimidate workers into signing union cards, we know that it is employers who use strong-arm tactics when they routinely force their workers to attend mandatory anti-union meetings in which they are threatened with firings and plant closures.
During union organizing campaigns employers hold the purse strings of the workers’ futures. The Employee Free Choice Act would balance out the power in the workplace and allow workers make conscious choices about their working conditions free of fear and intimidation.
Consider contacting your representatives in Congress to tell them to fight for Solis’s confirmation. Solis represents one of Obama’s most progressive picks for his cabinet. Let’s ensure that positive change really does happen this time!
• Katy Rose, Hanalei
 |
||
| Letters for Monday, February 2, 2009 |
Related headlines
- Public Meetings for Sunday, October 11, 2009
- Public Meetings for Sunday, August 9, 2009
- Letters for Saturday, November 22, 2008
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of kauaiworld.com.
manawai wrote on Feb 3, 2009 3:38 PM:
" Organized labor’s top priority in Congress is a bill called the “Employee Free Choice Act.” The measure would dramatically change U.S. labor law. Today, employees are entitled to a private-ballot election when deciding whether they want union representation in their workplace. Elections are overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, which has numerous procedures in place to ensure fair, fraud-free elections. Because of NLRB safeguards, employees can cast their vote confidentially, without peer pressure or coercion from unions or employers.
If Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act, employees effectively lose their right to private-ballot elections. The bill would establish a so-called “card-check” union organizing system, in which a majority of employees simply sign a card in favor of union representation.
Recent polls show strong majorities of the public want to keep the current protections in place. Numerous editorial pages across the country also have expressed support for keeping the private ballot.
National Restaurant Association, 2009 "
If Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act, employees effectively lose their right to private-ballot elections. The bill would establish a so-called “card-check” union organizing system, in which a majority of employees simply sign a card in favor of union representation.
Recent polls show strong majorities of the public want to keep the current protections in place. Numerous editorial pages across the country also have expressed support for keeping the private ballot.
National Restaurant Association, 2009 "
George Eighmey wrote on Feb 3, 2009 3:44 PM:
" Dear Editor:
SAY YES TO CHOICES AT THE END OF LIFE
Dr. Charles J. Bentz, who wrote the letter "Say No to Assisted Suicide”, is the President of an Oregon organization that has opposed Oregon's aid-in-dying since the law passed for the second time in 1997. His group claims supporters of Death with Dignity promote suicides and that no terminally ill person could ever use physician assisted dying, no matter how much pain and suffering they may experience. They claim that anyone who considers using aid-in-dying must be suicidal and that their condition can be addressed with anti-depressants or therapy. How dare they insult all terminally ill Oregonians who wish to consider aid-in-dying as one of their end-of-life options.
Oregon's Death with Dignity Act is working, there were no mistakes in ten years, no serious complications and no misdeeds. It has been seldom and carefully used. Oregon leads the nation in several areas of end of life care, including having among the highest percentage of terminally ill people who die in hospice care, one of the highest percentage uses of morphine to relieve pain, the highest percentage that die in their homes, and one of the lowest percentages who die in hospitals. End-of-life care in Oregon continues to improve, due in great part to Oregon's DWD Act as proven in several studies conducted by Dr. Linda Ganzini at Oregon Health Sciences University and the Oregon VA Hospital. Our organization, Compassion & Choices of Oregon, guides the majority of those who use the law through the process and our internal data complements Dr. Ganzini's studies. Thousands of Oregonians find great comfort in simply knowing the law is available to them if worse comes to worse during their final days.
Dr. Bentz incorrectly interprets why the death certificate of those who use Oregon's law states the person died from their underlying illness. The law specifically states the act of ingesting a lethal dose of medication is not suicide and that the identity of the person, their family, physicians and pharmacy are not to be made public. The reason should be obvious to Dr. Bentz since he is one of the opponents of the law who wants to publicly scorn those who use it and those who support it.
Dr. Bentz blatantly misrepresents the Barbara Wagner case. Oregon has a health plan for those who cannot afford normal health insurance. The Plan prioritizes coverage. Ms Wagner wanted the Plan to pay for an experimental treatment that had a less than 5% chance of success within 5 years. The Plan administrator informed Ms. Wagner that she could receive palliative care, hospice care and if she wished, death with dignity. It was inappropriate for the administrator to imply that Ms. Wagner should use aid-in-dying, but it was not, as Dr. Bentz suggested, to save the Plan money.
That 2/10th of 1 percent of Oregonians who use the law each year are highly educated, 88% are enrolled in hospice, 99% have health insurance, they are about equally divided between males and females, have an average age of 69, and the overwhelming majority die at home surrounded by their loved ones.
Dr. Bentz has the right not to participate or assist his terminally ill patients in using the law, but the majority of Oregonians has approved it twice and has proven the Act works because it permits one to take control of their end-of-life decisions. It gives them a way to exit this earth on their terms with their dignity intact.
George Eighmey
Executive Director
COMPASSION & Choices of Oregon
Portland, OR
503-525-1956 "
SAY YES TO CHOICES AT THE END OF LIFE
Dr. Charles J. Bentz, who wrote the letter "Say No to Assisted Suicide”, is the President of an Oregon organization that has opposed Oregon's aid-in-dying since the law passed for the second time in 1997. His group claims supporters of Death with Dignity promote suicides and that no terminally ill person could ever use physician assisted dying, no matter how much pain and suffering they may experience. They claim that anyone who considers using aid-in-dying must be suicidal and that their condition can be addressed with anti-depressants or therapy. How dare they insult all terminally ill Oregonians who wish to consider aid-in-dying as one of their end-of-life options.
Oregon's Death with Dignity Act is working, there were no mistakes in ten years, no serious complications and no misdeeds. It has been seldom and carefully used. Oregon leads the nation in several areas of end of life care, including having among the highest percentage of terminally ill people who die in hospice care, one of the highest percentage uses of morphine to relieve pain, the highest percentage that die in their homes, and one of the lowest percentages who die in hospitals. End-of-life care in Oregon continues to improve, due in great part to Oregon's DWD Act as proven in several studies conducted by Dr. Linda Ganzini at Oregon Health Sciences University and the Oregon VA Hospital. Our organization, Compassion & Choices of Oregon, guides the majority of those who use the law through the process and our internal data complements Dr. Ganzini's studies. Thousands of Oregonians find great comfort in simply knowing the law is available to them if worse comes to worse during their final days.
Dr. Bentz incorrectly interprets why the death certificate of those who use Oregon's law states the person died from their underlying illness. The law specifically states the act of ingesting a lethal dose of medication is not suicide and that the identity of the person, their family, physicians and pharmacy are not to be made public. The reason should be obvious to Dr. Bentz since he is one of the opponents of the law who wants to publicly scorn those who use it and those who support it.
Dr. Bentz blatantly misrepresents the Barbara Wagner case. Oregon has a health plan for those who cannot afford normal health insurance. The Plan prioritizes coverage. Ms Wagner wanted the Plan to pay for an experimental treatment that had a less than 5% chance of success within 5 years. The Plan administrator informed Ms. Wagner that she could receive palliative care, hospice care and if she wished, death with dignity. It was inappropriate for the administrator to imply that Ms. Wagner should use aid-in-dying, but it was not, as Dr. Bentz suggested, to save the Plan money.
That 2/10th of 1 percent of Oregonians who use the law each year are highly educated, 88% are enrolled in hospice, 99% have health insurance, they are about equally divided between males and females, have an average age of 69, and the overwhelming majority die at home surrounded by their loved ones.
Dr. Bentz has the right not to participate or assist his terminally ill patients in using the law, but the majority of Oregonians has approved it twice and has proven the Act works because it permits one to take control of their end-of-life decisions. It gives them a way to exit this earth on their terms with their dignity intact.
George Eighmey
Executive Director
COMPASSION & Choices of Oregon
Portland, OR
503-525-1956 "
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g-man wrote on Feb 3, 2009 9:12 AM: